design / illustration / photography / curiosity

So since having moved house a month or so ago I’ve passed this garage and petrol station every time that I’ve got the bus into Lincoln and have been itching to photograph it. I have a huge interest in abandoned buildings and have spent quite a while looking at some great shots from all over the world online so it was great to be able to take some of my own.

We were really fortunate that someone had taken one of the panes of glass out of the windows to get into the garage, meaning we could get in to photograph the inside of it as well as the outside.

These lights were just hidden under a loose piece of flooring. It seemed really strange that someone had gone to the trouble of removing them but not getting rid, as though they were hiding them to come back and claim.

As well as the garage there was also a little independent petrol station and shop, but unfortunately there was no way to get into the building and as I wanted to capture the decay and destruction that had already occurred and not add to it myself I wasn’t prepared to break my way in.

I would love if someone could let me know what these strange plantlike tendrils hanging down were caused by, they’re extremely eerie.

The next place I have my eye on to photograph is a derelict barn in Dunholme. As it’s a little further from home it’ll have to be quite well planned, but its another one I have an urge to get off the bus and see every time I drive past it.

Now obviously this blog is mainly for me to showcase the work that I have recently completed, but this work doesn’t just come from nowhere, it’s a skill that has been nurtured and developed over the years. I recently went digging through my external hard drives and located my old website. The fancy CSS doesn’t work any more and the layout is tiny on a screen that’s no longer 800×600 but the artwork that it holds is a brilliant treasure trove for how I personally have been developing as an illustrator over the years.

I’ve been drawing since I was in nappies, something which my mother is very pleased to be able to tell people. It was something that I just couldn’t get enough of and I could be kept very nice and quiet with a magic slate. The artwork I’m showing here starts when I was around 10 years old though, as that’s when I personally started keeping what I’d drawn (I believe I still have pretty much every image that’s in this post in its physical format as well as digital).

With hind sight gel pens were probably not the best thing to be using for my drawings, they were expensive, hard to work with and came in a range of very strange colours. But I took pretty much every page from the Ephemeral Fantasia game guide and drew them with only the passion an 11 year old can.

Anime was a huge influence on my teenage years as I’m sure it was for many other people of the same age as me. My love of all things Sailor Moon and Cardcaptors drove my family mad, they would often have to sit through repeat after repeat and I had dozens of printouts of the artwork painstakingly gathered in a ring binder so that I was sure to have plenty of images to work from. I have even been guilty of recording episodes from the television so that I could pause them at specific bits and draw what I saw on the screen. My love of drawing anime did get me picked on a little, while people were impressed by my commitment they couldn’t understand it.

As an illustrator one of my least favourite questions is “Can you teach me to draw?” I’ve had it since I was in high school and my answer still is, and will always be, NO. I don’t believe that anybody can be TAUGHT to draw, and so loathe all of the ‘how to draw anything’ books that can be found on the market. The skills needed to create a piece of work such as screen printing, dip ink pens and water colours can be taught, sure, but as for the actual artwork that you create with these techniques, that’s something that you need to learn for yourself.

For myself it was copying that helped me to learn how to draw, I copied hundreds and hundreds of images from animes, books and photographs, using them as a guide point to better my abilities.

Some of the artwork that I created during my period of copying existing pieces was hugely time consuming. Being a high school student I had a very limited palette of materials to work with, usually fine liners, fountain pens and Crayola pencils. I once completed an A3 drawing which contained a whole lot of black using just a fountain pen. Looking back at it around 6 years later I’m amazed that I had the time and the perseverance to complete it!

I was always a good girl at school. I got top grades and got on with all but one of my teachers (and the one I didn’t get on with disliked everyone who just got on with their work) and because of this my teachers pretty much let me get away with murder. I spent at least half of my lessons doodling (and listening at the same time!) but never really got in trouble for it, in fact half of them would actually often come to look at what it was I was creating and would offer help and advice. I think I must have had some of the most colourful school exercise books they’d ever seen!

Near the end of my time at high school Tokyopop announced their Rising Stars of Manga competition. My curiosity piqued I decided that I would create an entry. Yume: Quest for the Fried Egg Laying Chicken was a story which originated from me falling for a friends joke about chickens laying fried eggs (it’s a long story). All of the characters featured within its pages were actually real people from within my life, and this was easily the longest piece of work that I had completed, with all my own designs. The storyline was dire, and looking back there was no way that I was ever going to win but it’s still a piece of work that I’m very proud of. I’d love to get back to creating a web comic now, but just haven’t had the motivation and don’t have a storyline to work with (if anyone has a story that they want illustrating however be sure to get in contact!)

As I moved into college at the age of 16 I started to create my own characters. Aori and Victor (featured above) were two dreadfully mismatched characters, one being a bubbly scatterbrained mad scientist and the other a cold hearted killing machine. They were such great fun to create, working on a personality, a history and a life for these characters that I formed with my own hands through pencil, pen and ink. I still love them to bits now and need to work on an updated version of them. (I have a funny feeling that by the end of this blog post I am going to have a huge list of things that I would like to draw and update!)

Not all of my artwork was anime related through my years at high school however. I spent painstaking amounts of hours working on real life images, my hands coated in pencil. My art teacher adored me, but she hated anything that wasn’t traditional art, so the work that I was producing elsewhere in the school was ironically kept under lock and key as soon as I entered the domain it actually belonged to. Instead I worked with chalks and charcoals, pencils, paints, cut paper, all sorts of materials I just wouldn’t have used through my own choice. My high school art teacher was also the person who taught me to sew (which probably explains why the stuff that I make isn’t hugely durable!) and the strangest thing that I sewed during my time there was a kimono made of laminated sheets of flowers and leaves. It was actually wearable and I really wish I still had it around to photograph.

I became fascinated with the chibi when I was in high school. The ability to take a completely serious character and turn them into something much softer and more comical just by changing their proportions was a huge plus point for me, and also allowed me to concentrate more on the bits that I moved the most- drawing faces and hair. The chibis proportions are something that I keep coming back to even now in my work.

One of the most interesting projects that I’ve undertaken was drawing on a pair of converse. They were perhaps one of the geekiest things I’ve ever made and it’s a shame that because of the shape of the shoe I couldn’t iron them to make the designs waterproof. The shoes feature a range of characters from various video games and animes that I was interested in at the time. I still have them around and a spare blank pair, so if I ever get hold of more fabric pens and paints I will create a new and more up to date design.

College was a great time for me. Suddenly work didn’t have to be traditional beautifully crafted drawings for it to be considered worth doing and I could move more in directions that I wanted to. The above images were created to go along with a selection of Edward Lear’s nonsense rhymes using a variety of media and drawing techniques that I had never even considered before.

This short comic was created using the lyrics from the song ‘My Bloody Valentine’ by Good Charlotte. As someone who had spent so many years creating very anime-esque artwork my lecturer convinced me to try something a little bit darker and less cutesy. It was an amazingly successful piece and I’m so glad that he convinced me to do something that was different and a little more of a challenge.

My final project at college was a fully illustrated book based on the Chinese retelling of Cinderella (a nice story called Yeh Shen). For this I worked with perhaps one of my most unusual material combinations yet. The above images were based on posed photographs that I took of my friends, which were then drawn onto tracing paper for the linework, photocopied onto acetate and the colour work was then created on top of the original drawings before the two were stuck together and scanned to be cleaned up. It was a clunky procedure that caused me to ruin my own printer (yeah, don’t put acetate through an inkjet printer, just a laser one) but I still adore the end results now and it was definitely my most successful venture into paints.

Even in college I had an interest in fashion illustration, borrowing books on the subject from the library and searching it out online. It wasn’t until I started producing illustrations for Amelia’s Magazine earlier this year however that I started to consider it as being an actual viable job prospect for myself. Back in college it was just an amazing illustration style that I would love to be able to replicate.

Phew! I hope you’re still with me or that you’ve at least had a good time looking through this timeline of my work through around 8 years. I feel that I’ve improved a huge amount since the 11 year old who decided that gel pens were a good way to colour an image in, and the 14 year old who spent all her days replicating existing anime styles. I know that I have still not stopped growing and developing however (do we ever stop learning and furthering ourselves as creatives?) so maybe in another 5 years time I’ll be looking back at the work that I am producing now with as huge a sense of nostalgia as I am getting from looking back from at the work I have already created. I will continue to keep the images that I produce, whether they’re 2 minute doodles or 2 day masterpieces, as they’re always worth at least a good giggle afterwards.

On twitter a month or so ago I spotted a call for women zine makers to submit work for an exhibition in London. Being as I’m both a woman and have dabbled with zines before I decided that this might very well be worth me having a hand in and so have dug around to find copies of my old zines and created a new one with my illustration work specially to send down.

The first of the zines that I’m sending down is Survival Guide, which was created as a mock issue for part of my third year uni work. The idea was that students would work together to create each individual issue which would then be distributed in pop up shops around the country.

The second zine is an old one for me, something that I created in the middle of my second year to address the feeling of hatred. The hatred I chose to show was my hate of being a member of staff at KFC and all the horrible people that I’d had to serve (I’m so glad I don’t work there any more!) The zine was actually bound in KFC brown bags after I’d sampled a variety of different pieces of packaging to see which one worked best. The illustrations inside were really stress relieving to work on.

The third and final zine is a compilation of some of the illustration work that I’ve created over the past 2 years. There’s no real theme here like with the other two, I just wanted to get as much of my work down into this exhibition as I could. I got a colour copy done as well to keep myself and take to interviews as a quick sample of what I’m capable of doing.

If you’re interested in visiting the Tatty Devine Girls & Zines event starts on the 3rd of August. I’ll be trying to make it down if I can. 🙂

I recently decide that I’d like to design my own deck of cards (not for anything particularly deep but just because I thought they’d look nice!). These cards will all be created in a cutesy style with each of the suites having a different theme and colour scheme to it.

I’ve started on the Hearts, having given them a theme of love and a colour scheme of red and pinks. It’s been quite a fun challenge to work with a limited colour palette.

Eventually I’d like to get these done as an actual deck of cards as well as postcards and posters. But first I have another 60 cards to finish!

My greatest apologies for the lack of updates, but somewhere within all the designing, job applying, illustrating and general day to day life I seem to have forgotten to squeeze a few updates in every now and then!

The illustration above was a test to see how well Letraset Tria marker’s work as fineliners, as I’m sick of buying fineliners and finding that I’ve worn the nibs off them within a month or two so that they create nasty and uneven lines. It frustrates me because I know the pens are still packed with ink, I just can’t get to it anymore. My verdict was that Tria’s aren’t QUITE as good to line with in the fact that they seem to bleed a fair bit when colour is applied on top of them but that this problem is easy to deal with and should hopefully mean I just need to purchase a few replacement tips and cartridges rather than have a pencil case full of dud fineliners.

As I’ve yet to find full time employment that starts straight away I’ve been trying to occupy myself with as many little projects as I can for the time being. I’m doing some freelance logo design for a friend, have pitched to do this year’s rebrand on Oxjam (which I’m waiting to hear back about, I’ll post my pitch here if I don’t get picked as I love it and will most likely develop it further anyway) and am working on a variety of personal projects as well.

Within the next month I’m hoping to have enough prints, badges and stickers to set up an Etsy store. I’m considering trying my hand at hardback book binding as well to create some custom sketchpads with my work on the cover, but I’ll need to test this out with some much cheaper materials to begin with as it’s been a fair while since I did any binding. I have lots of want to do things, but lack of money is really holding me back at the moment (quite sadly).

I will be visiting my family and friends back in Stoke next week, before heading to Birmingham on the Sunday and Monday to help Inkygoodness out with an exhibition, which I am hugely nervous and excited about. If I’m allowed to (I still need to ask) I will be taking plenty of images while I’m there. Once I get back I should hopefully be working as a Graphic Designer for an up and coming business magazine in Nottingham which I’ve already designed the logo for. It mean’s 2 hours worth of trains and an hours bus ride a day, but I’m looking forward to it as it gets me out of the house and actually doing some design work for money!

I’m now selling some of my art on society6, so if you fancy buying anything my shop can be found here . I’ve only got a slow upload speed in my flat, so check back regularly for more updates!

I’ve been playing around with the Tria markers that I bought last week (they were 60% off and I already get a lifetime 10% off at Letraset so I actually got almost 70% off! £80 worth of markers for £24ish!)

These images are all part of my dissertation on Japanese street fashion, which I hope to redesign and publish soon.

First off here’s a cyber goth. Her dreadlocks were really fun to draw.

This cute girl is wearing clothing from Tokyo Royale, a Japanese fashion inspired clothing store located in Afflecks Palace in Manchester.

Lastly here’s a portrait of a ganguro (white face) girl in all her strange glory. This was the funnest of the three images to draw but strangely the one I’m least happy with.

I have about 20 more images left to illustrate for my dissertation, but for now I’m off to start a new Amelia’s Magazine piece. If you like what you read and see in my blog please subscribe, I like knowing I’m not just rambling to myself 🙂

I recently purchased a light box after realising that now that uni is over I’ll no longer have access to the ones that they have. I’ve been dabbling with the idea of getting one for quite a while (when I was in college I used to use two piles of books, a lamp and a glass cutting board, ha ha) but it was only after getting loads of “Go on, you should get on they’re awesome!”s on Twitter that I actually gave in and bought one.

The lightbox I picked up in the end is smaller than I was originally going to get. I’ve been wooed by the huge A2 ones that educational institutes always seem to have and so had got it into my head that I needed something of a similar size. In the end I settled for a slimline A4 model though, something which made more sense as it’ll fit in my laptop bag and I don’t currently have a desk to use a bulkier light box on at the moment.

I’m looking to start a new project for myself soon, using my dissertation as a starting point. As some of you guys may know, my dissertation was about Japanese street fashion, a subject that’s always interested me (I have my own Gothic Lolita shoes!) and I got the marks back for it a month or so ag0, which equated to a first. I found that I still had quite a bit that I wanted to say that had to be cut out of my final piece however, and so would quite like to add more into it and design an illustrated version to get printed and up for sale on sites such as lulu.com and amazon, so that other people who have an interest in Japanese fashion have another reference point to use.

To colour this piece I placed an additional layer of layout paper over the lineart and used marker pens to roughly mark out the bright colours of the Harajuku girls skirts and legs. I then placed the two images together in photoshop.

I’m pretty pleased with the way this has worked out and the light box was certainly worth the investment- it saved me the time of cleaning off my sketch which usually takes me quite a while. I’ll be dabbling with this style a lot more now I think!